It’s a fully-realized vision of the dreamy shoegaze-pop they’d sought to prefect for years. How heartbreaking to know such a once-in-a-lifetime creative partnership has been silenced.
It’s an encapsulation of everything SVIIB were, and tragically never will be ... Despite there being so much to drag this album under, it somehow claws to the surface every time. You’ll be smiling at the end, I promise.
SVIIB is the sort of record that gets you right in the heart, even if you weren't to know its backstory.
SVIIB is not only the group’s most technically accomplished work, their perfected swan song—it feels true. You couldn’t ask for a better memorial than that.
SVIIB is the light show to the perfect dream, one where acknowledgements of life’s strife become that which makes celebration possible.
It's all about Deheza and Curtis, a decade-long partnership, split in romantic and platonic halves -- and creative throughout -- that is radiantly illustrated with expressions of bliss, frustration, consolation, reassurance, and, ultimately, grief.
The result, SVIIB, is a moving synth-pop paean to the pair’s powerful relationship and a fitting finale to their School of Seven Bells project.
The more down-the-middle SVIIB shows that these postscripts aren’t always special, but we’re grateful for the closing chapter nonetheless.
#13 | / | Drowned in Sound |
#14 | / | God Is In The TV |
#19 | / | Entertainment Weekly |
#24 | / | musicOMH |
#29 | / | Under the Radar |
#46 | / | Fopp |